‘Well, I’ll tell you all aboot it. The maister wass a very prudent man, and when a cow died he wad be sāaltin’ the beast, and we wad be eatin’ her. Then by and by there wass a great mortāality among the cocks and hens, and they died faster than we could be eatin’ them; and the master, he sāalted the cocks and the hens, and we wad be eatin’ them too. Well, ye see, it wass comin’ on for Martinmas, and the weather wass mortial cowld, and at last the ould man, the maister’s faither, he died. The maister, he cam’ to me the next mornin’, and said he, “Donald, I see we’re rinnin short o’ sāalt, so I’m thinkin’ you’ll need to be goin’ doon to Dingwall for some more.” Well, you see, I went down to Dingwall, whatefer, but I wass never going back to Auchengreean at all, at all.’[20] Occasionally a farm labourer becomes a dexterous poacher, and shows by the ingenuity of his methods how well he would have succeeded had fortune opened a way for him in an honest calling that would have given scope for his abilities. The experienced poacher is not infrequently a successful competitor in games where skill as well as strength is required. In curling, for instance, which, even more than golf, brings together men of all ranks in the social scale, the Sheriff may sometimes be seen playing in the same game with men on whom he has had to pass sentence. There is a story of one of these associations, wherein a notorious poacher, who had often been imprisoned, shouted out to the Sheriff who had tried him, ‘Now, Shirra, drive the stane in; gie her sax months’; six months’ imprisonment being an extreme display of the Sheriff’s legal power with which the speaker had made practical acquaintance. [Sidenote: CAULD SOWENS] A former minister of the parish of Kirkmichael, in Ayrshire, was resting in his study one Saturday afternoon after having finished the preparation of his sermon for next day, when he was startled with sounds of violent quarrelling in his own house. He jumped up from his easy chair, opened the door, and heard the angry voice of his own ‘man’ shouting in the kitchen, ‘Na, noo ye limmer, tho’ I chase ye to Jericho I’ll catch ye.’ The minister rushed off to save life, burst into the kitchen, and found there, to his great surprise, nobody but the man himself who worked on the glebe, and who was now seated at a table taking his supper. ‘John, John, what’s the meaning o’ this? What were ye swearing at? Wha were ye fechtin’ wi’?’ ‘_Me_, minister,’ said the astonished John, ‘I’m no fechtin’, I’m no swearin’ at onybody, I’m only suppin’ thae cauld sowens oot o’ a pewter plate wi’ this thick horn-spoon, and they’re gey an’ fickle to catch.’